


you'll come undone

by MyCupOfTea



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canon typical drug use, Dream Sharing, M/M, it's literally just a bunch of scenes, so there's that, this has like no actual plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 23:17:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10292330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyCupOfTea/pseuds/MyCupOfTea
Summary: Dreamsharing is, quite frankly, a trip. Especially when someone is tripping balls and someone else is on a trip across the country.Alternatively, Eric Bittle Deals With A Lot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I am. . . wholly unsatisfied with this. I just kind of started writing scenes hoping a plot would emerge and one never did, but at the same time I'm too in love with this idea to let it sit unfinished. So I pretended it was finished and here it is. I'm sorry. 
> 
> I've been on a vintage Bastille kick, so the title is from [Sleepsong](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLRDbNGfJ_A).

Bitty has never shared dreams like this before.

It's not that he's never had a shared dream. He was still a little young for it all when he was figure skating, but he was close enough with his high school hockey team that dreams would overlap if more than one of them fell asleep on the bus at the same time.

But this was different.

There usually has to be some level of familiarity, and while no studies have been conclusive, it's generally accepted that similar schedules or routines make it easier. Some people only end up sharing dreams with people they live with, like a spouse, while others end up able to project and receive over long distances.

Bitty, of course, ends up with a decent chunk of the hockey team messing with his dreams.

It was more tolerable and less frequent when he was still in the dorms - although his roommate had had a dream about his family's cat that still made Bitty feel a little green whenever a stray tabby got too close - but now that he was living in the Haus, it was almost impossible to go a night without feeling slightly like he was trespassing in someone's head.

Bitty walks into Ransom, Holster, and Shitty already at the table, slowly starting to truly wake up. He moodily slides into a chair.

"Whoever had the caterpillar dream," he says, propping his head up on his hand and letting his eyes close, "isn't allowed to watch Alice In Wonderland ever again."

When he opens his eyes, Ransom and Holster are glaring at Shitty. Jack walks into the room and makes a beeline for the fridge.

"Shitty," he says as he's rummaging around for the protein shakes he tends to favor for breakfast. "No more smoking and Disney movies."

"But -"

"No."

"Jack, it's -"

"No. Or at least watch them in French."

"Jack, my friend, why the fuck would I, someone who is violently bad at even remembering that there are other languages beside English, watch a Disney movie in French?"

Jack turns around and looks way more intimidating than anyone should get to look with a banana flavored protein shake in their hand.

"I don't know, Shits. Why would a caterpillar need socks that large?"

\---------

Most of the times the dreams aren't even that remarkable or noteworthy, except in how often they all share, and certainly not disrupting. Most of the time it's something that's only noticeable because of a certain quality, like the difference between the foreground and the background of an old cartoon, that makes it feel distinctly _other_.

But it's not bad.

Bitty talks to rugby guy about it over coffee at Annie's. He didn't bring it up; his date had mentioned he didn't get enough sleep the night before and when Bitty asked why, said it was because he and his teammate had shared dreams and it had thrown him off enough that he couldn't go back to sleep.

"Oh?" Bitty says. "Does that happen every time your dreams overlap? That sounds like it would get annoying quickly."

"Not all the time but - probably most of the time. It's not too bad, it doesn't happen very often." His date shrugs.

"Really? Dream sharing happens all the time with us."

His date frowns.

"Like, how often? Once a week?"

"No, um - usually once a night. But most of the time they're just small dreams like - I'm putting a jersey in a locker room and it's not mine. Or someone is walking into the house and I see myself, then it's over. Things like that."

"That's - really weird."

"What, really? I thought it was pretty normal for teams. You know, we all have to be awake at the same time, we eat together, we all have practice, so our schedules line up. And we're all pretty close." Bitty tries not to feel offended, but Rugby Guy seems like he's suddenly a little too surprised by the hockey team's dreams.

"Well, yeah, but - that's a lot."

"Huh. Well. You get used to it. Until caterpillars come into the equation."

Five minutes later Rugby Guy tries to kiss him, and Bitty makes up an excuse about practice to run away.

\----------

Someone has been having dreams about Camilla Collins.

They all assume it's Jack, because who else? It makes Ransom and Holster give him pointed looks across a Kegster when half of the upperclassmen of the tennis team show up, led by Camilla.

Bitty doesn't see all of the dreams, which is nice because they're a little. . . charged.

Bitty is no stranger to sexual dreams that aren't his, but they're usually infrequent and one time occurrences that he can brush off in the morning. But these keep happening, and it doesn't help that Jack is the person having it.

The dreams are so focused, are so obviously had by someone who is _familiar_ with Camilla. Lingering appreciation for her arms, for her lips, for the strength in her thighs. . .

It's like his subconscious jumping up and down while yelling _you fell for a straight boy who's lusting after a girl! A girl he's had sex with!_

It's getting old, to say the least.

It had been a blissful week and a half with no Camilla dreams for Bitty, although Shitty had mentioned having one two days ago, until Bitty woke up swearing on Saturday.

He stumbles downstairs, a little hungover and more than a little irritated, to find Ransom and Holster already at the table, head on their folded arms.

"Please, mysterious footsteps, be Bitty, oh fantastic and wonderful maker of hungover brunch -"

"If you want brunch today you're either finally learning how to turn on the stove or going to Jerry's," Bitty says, sitting down with a thump.

They each crack open an eye at him.

"You're grumpy today," Holster remarks. "So you got caught up in that shitstorm too, huh?"

Bitty just groans and lets his head fall against the table.

"Man, I never thought about that," Ransom says. "It's gotta be extra weird for you, right? Like, because you don't -"

"Ransom, please stop talking," Bitty mumbles. Ransom was almost definitely going to say _because you don't like girls_ and not _because you're seeing into your crush's wet dream_ , but Bitty doesn't really want to think about it either way.

"We're just going to have to get Jack laid," Holster says, and Bitty wonders if he could get away with murdering his teammates.

"Bitty, my man, my wonderful Georgia peach, master of all things edible, is there brunch in our future?" Shitty says plaintively, sliding into the last available chair. Bitty just flips him off and gets a sigh in return. "Fair, I suppose."

"Don't mind him, Bitty Bits is grumpy because Jack won't stop plaguing his dreams with -"

"Because I won't stop what?" Jack says, pulling the earbuds out of his ears as he walks back into the kitchen from his morning run.

"Jack, please. For all of us. Get laid," Ransom mutters into the table.

Jack frowns.

"What? Are you trying to set me up again? Because please don't."

"Do you need us to set you up? Because we will. Just say the word," Holster swears.

"Please. Really. Don't." He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge.

"Then please go - I don't even know what to tell you, but I think if I dream about Camilla one more time I'm never going to be able to look anyone on the tennis team in the eye again," Bitty bemoans.

"Oh," Jack says, shoulders loosening. "Those dreams. They're not mine."

"What do you mean they're not yours, of course they're yours," Holster mumbles. "Who else would be having them? You're the only one who's ever been at all involved with her."

Jack shrugs.

"Don't know what to tell you. But it's not me having them. Well, I've shared them a few times - which is awkward for me, too."

"That's almost worse," Ransom moans. "Who the hell could it possibly be -"

"You all look awful," Lardo says, waltzing into the Haus. "Did I leave my charger in here?"

It could be the hangover talking. It could be the fact that it would be nice to have someone besides Jack having dreams about Camilla. But -

"Holy shit," Shitty whispered. "Are you - walk of shaming?"

"Do I look ashamed?" Lardo says, coolly plugging in her phone. "Just because all of you had to wake up hungover in your own bed doesn't mean I had to."

In a flash, Shitty has an arm draped over her shoulders and is leaning in dramatically.

"Well then, will you at least do your closest and most loyal friends the honor of. . . spilling the deets?" Shitty wiggles his eyebrows dramatically.

"You all can't possibly care that much -" Lardo turns around to everyone staring at her. "Or you can. Whatevs. I've been talking to her a little bit because - it's a long story. Anyway. Someone spilt beer all over Camilla, but it was late, so I walked home with her. And then. . . I didn't leave."

"Camilla," Shitty says flatly. "Camilla. . . ?"

"Collins? Do we know any other Camillas?"

It's silent for another beat, and the room explodes in sound.

" _Et tu, Lardo?!_ " Ransom yells.

"Ah, _that's_ why Camilla asked if she could come last night," Jack realizes.

"Laaaardoooo," Bitty groans, "I thought we were friends."

"You guys are usually never this way when I hook up, what the fuck?"

"Most of the time when you hook up you don't project your dreams about them to the whole team," Shitty says. Lardo, to Bitty's astonishment, blushes.

"Oh. Well - Is that what you all were talking about?"

"We all thought it was Jack," Holster says. Lardo swears.

"Fuck, I could have pretended it was Jack. Shit. That would have been smart."

\-----------

It's in the bylaws: You don't lie about what you see in someone else's dream.

You don't have to talk about it. You don't ever have to acknowledge that it happened. But if anyone asks, you never lie. Sometimes personal information gets out and it's just easier if everyone is honest up front.

So when Bitty wakes up gasping from a nightmare about football players and utility closets, tangled in his sheets and soaked in sweat, he's not all that surprised to find Jack and Shitty already at the kitchen table.

They look up guiltily as he walks in, and he sighs.

"I'm making hot chocolate, if anyone wants any. So you both - saw -" Bitty can't make himself finish.

"Yeah Bits," Shitty says, gently. "We did."

Bitty heats up milk in a saucepan, enough for the three of them. He lets himself fall into the routine of making hot chocolate and puts a mug in front of the both of them.

"Um -" Jack starts to protest.

"Drink it, Zimmermann," Bitty says crossly, settling down with his own mug across the table. Jack sheepishly takes a sip.

"You wanna talk about it?" Shitty asks, gently nudging Bitty under the table.

"What's there to talk about? You two saw the whole thing." Bitty doesn't even have to look up to know they're exchanging looks. "No, no, don't do that. Look, just - don't."

"Okay, Bits," Jack says, and leaves it.

"But," Bitty bites his lip. "Can we maybe leave extra checking practice until the day after tomorrow? I need a day to sleep in."

\----------

Bitty doesn't tend to share his own dreams very often. He sees everyone else's plenty, but it's not very often it goes the other way around.

Which is a good thing, Bitty thinks, as he wakes up rutting into his mattress for the second time that week. Still, he creeps downstairs, waiting for any sound or movement that meant someone might have shared in that dream.

"I'm just saying, it was fucking weird." Bitty froze on the second to last step, just out of the line of sight of the kitchen.

"You can't tell me that that was actually the first time you've seen Holster's dick," and Bitty almost has to sit down with relief. It sounds like they're talking about someone's wet dream - about Holster? - but not his, exposing his embarrassing crush on their captain.

Meanwhile, Jack wakes up later and more confused than he has in a long time. He grabs his phone off the table, and types out a text to Shitty. He hesitates, then deletes it without sending.

_Is it weird to jerk off after seeing someone else's wet dream of yourself?_

\-------------

It takes a while for Providence to feel like home, for Providence to be the place Jack wants to go back to at the end of the day.

At first, when he and Bitty hadn't seen each other in two weeks, he wondered if he had made a mistake staying so close to Samwell. The Haus is tantalizing close, Bitty is tantalizing close, and he's homesick for the first time in a long time.

Jack first realizes Providence is home when he wakes up shaking in a hotel room wishing he was looking at the ceiling of his apartment.

 He takes in a shaky breath, and has barely started exhaling when his phone starts vibrating obnoxiously on the nightstand.

"Hello?" he croaks.

"Jack." It's Bitty, because of course it is, and Jack must have shared that with him, oh God - "Jack, are you - that was -"

"I'm - yeah," Jack says, because what do you even say? "I'm sorry."

"It's - don't be sorry, Jack, don't be sorry -"

"No, no, I - that was bad. I'm sorry you got it too." _Got it_ , like it's a cold. Like Bitty didn't just see -

"I just - are you okay?"

Jack tries to take in a deep breath. He fails, tries again. Tries to completely expand his chest.

"I'm getting there. Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. It's just - I'm not sure I've ever seen someone else's nightmare before, like that. It was really - vivid."

Jack squeezes his eyes shut against the guilt.

"I'm sorry."

"Sweetheart, it's - it's fine. Really. It happened, but it was just a dream." Bitty hesitates on the line. "Are you. . . are you going back to sleep right away?"

"No," Jack sighs, resigned. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Oh," and there's relief in Bitty's voice. "Okay. Me neither. How's Arizona?"

Jack settles into the pillows a little better.

"Wet, if you can believe it."

"Really? It was bright and sunny here today. That seems a bit backwards."

"Yeah." There's a beat of silence that Jack is suddenly desperate to fill. "When I woke up, I wished I was home."

"I think that's pretty normal, after that."

"Yeah, but. . . Home was the apartment. That's the first time - first I've felt like that, about Providence."

He can see Bitty's warm smile if he closes his eyes.

"That's great, honey," and even after all that had happened that night, Jack was starting to believe it would be.

\-------------

Two months later, Jack wakes up in Seattle still half ensnarled in the dream, pushing his hips down into the hotel mattress and groaning when it's not enough. As soon as he has any kind of true sense about him, he snatches his phone off the nightstand and slams Bitty's contact.

"Jack," Bitty says, breathless.

"Bitty," Jack whines, not even caring how pathetic he sounds. "Bits, I was so close."

"I'm sorry, Ransom and Holster dropped something and it woke me up," Bitty says. Time zones suck, Jack decides, as his hips fuck down into the mattress without his consent again. "But I've got a few minutes before my alarm goes off, so if you want -"

"Yes," Jack moans, long and drawn out, rolling onto his back and shoving a hand down his boxers. He's close, was so close when the dream cut off, but now he can roll his hips into the tightness of his hand, which is much better than the mattress, anyway.

"Fuck, Jack, been too long, miss you, miss being with you, miss the face you make just before you come -"

And really, Jack's surprised it took even that long, considering how keyed up he had been when he woke up. He tightens his grip and his hips stutter up into fist before he comes, relief washing over him in waves.

"God, Bits. Don't even know what you do to me, thousands of miles away and I still can't stop thinking about you -"

Bitty lets out a soft whimper, but that's all Jack gets as he comes. The combination of orgasm and exhaustion is wearing down on him, though, and his eyes feel heavy.

"Miss you," he murmurs down the line, and he hears a soft sigh from Bitty.

"I miss you too, honey. Change before you fall back asleep, okay? I have to get up, but I'll talk to you later."

"Mmkay," Jack mumbles, and then hear the line go dead.

He shimmies his underwear off and deposits them unceremoniously off the side of the bed before he falls asleep deeper than before.

\---------------

Bitty has been trying to tell to his parents for two weeks now.

He wants to tell them that he's gay, that he's dating Jack, that he got an amazing internship in Providence for the summer that makes Jack deliriously proud and happy to think about. But every time he Skypes with them, every time he calls his mom, he can't seem to get the words out.

He'd finally broke down in frustrated tears that night, both of them in the kitchen after Jack's game. Eventually Jack had been able to coax him to bed to at least lay down and relax, even if he couldn't sleep. Bitty does eventually fall asleep, and Jack isn't far behind.

Jack can't say he's surprised, really, when he falls into Bitty's dream.

It's not a very corporeal dream. There's just a feeling of distinct terror, and the underlying feeling of being alone, like the whole world had turned on him -

"Bits?" Jack calls out, slightly desperate. "Bitty!"

There's no answer, and so he thrashes, suddenly trapped by something -

Jack wakes up tangled in the sheets, and almost shoves Bitty onto the floor trying to get out of them.

"Jesus, Jack," Bitty mumbles. "I know getting my nightmare wasn't fun, but it's not like it was fun for me either."

"Bitty," Jack says urgently, wrapping Bitty tight in his arms. "You're not doing this alone, okay? You don't have to do it alone."

"I know that, Jack. We're a team."

"No, no, I mean - your parents. Let me help. Let me be there for you. Please."

Finally understanding that Jack isn't just talking in the broad sense, Bitty squints up at him.

"We've talked about this, Jack, I don't want this just to be about us. I'm gay, and - Lord, I hope this is never relevant - I'm going to be gay in ten years whether we're together or not. And it's important that they understand that -"

"I know, I know, but - just let me be there for you. Please? I can just - hold your hand. Be with you. You can do it on your own but - I just want to make it a little easier for you."

"Oh, honey," Bitty says, relaxing back against the mattress and coaxing Jack to do the same, "you already do."

 

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a tumblr!](http://marchingatmidnight.tumblr.com/)


End file.
